Hey, from Twitter I became aware of this video called "Hackerspaces and the Law." In it, Jennifer Granick from the EFF gives a talk about legal issues people in a hackerspace might face. It was Filmed at Noisebridge in San Francisco.

I can see this video becoming a sort of prerequisite for hacker space membership.

brief notes on the video: blip tv kinda bites. no problems streaming on other sites at the moment, but this keeps staggering and pausing.

it's interesting to note the use of the term hacker in terms of application of intent in regard to LEO actions. i.e. vaugely comparable to it's legal to carry a pry bar down the street, but as soon as a sharpie on it "door breaker" it can be treated as a "burglary tool" and i arrested for intent regardless of if i'm heading over to dave's house to help him open a stuck door in his basement.

there's a LOT of stuff on being compelled to turn over records or be forced to record data on networks, which as we generally seem more interested as a group in making things physically than digitally, or see the space as such are significantly less prominent concerns.

there's a bit of concern over people doing naughty things on the network, almost to the point that there's an assumption that there IS illegal if not at least unethical network use going on and there's a bunch of CYA both for teh group and individuals. for us i think this means a good membership/liability waiver/agreement that in addition to not being destructive, folks won't do anything illegal in teh space, physically or virtually.

otherwise it's a decent primer on legal rights in terms of individuals being naughty, and your computer being seized, but less directly applicable to non computer "hacking" sorts of things as a whole.

once we're 501c3 i expect we will be doing some "sponsorship" sorts of things, i.e. we get a steep discount for the shop and a minor one for members and put up a sign for jimmy's tool shack in the shop, or mention on our promo materials that we're supported by xyz corp. even if it's just a little plaque on a tool stating "donated by..."

if it means significant web access then the log in splash could be "internet sponsored by.." or something.

if it means mention in their adverts , i.e. xyz supports tcmaker, that's a huge bonus for us.

I'm still trying to figure it out. We do a lot of managed firewall/managed network services - and something like this would be mentioned in press releases at the very least. Before I get the $dayjob too riled up, I want to make sure it's going to actually benefit the group/space.

The whole point of a hacker space is to allow people to do what they want with it with-in the extent of the law. Have people sign a legal document and be done with it. Don't put in unnecessary controls, this is not some large corporate company with stock holders and customers, it's a hackers space.

If you present someone with something like the vision statement from Noisebridge, this should not be an issue. "Our code of conduct is "Be excellent to each other". "https://www.noisebridge.net/wiki/Vision

Laying out these boundaries for people must be done upfront, and enforcement can be done later- if needed. Generally if someone is being an ASSHAT, the other members of the community will oust them from the space.

CCCKC has a packet that people must sign that includes indemnification stuff, I'm would be willing to contact the CCCKC resident lawyer to see if he could give us the template that he used. Then require new members to sign before becoming a member.

If you want to segment the network into VLANs so that people can play, I am all for that- eg: CTF network, infrastructure stuff (cameras, printers, computers for office, etc), public wired, darknet, and public wifi. I have several boxes laying around that could do PFSense just fine and handle all of these (I may even have an old Cisco Catalyst to do the VLANs).